[Female narrator] Along the banks of the Passaic River,
police make a terrifying discovery.
We're talking about large Hefty bags filled with body parts,
roughly 65 pieces.
We just couldn't believe what we were looking at.
[Narrator] As the mysterious scene begins to unravel,
details surrounding the victim emerge.
What did the guy in the bags do
to make him cut him up in such a way?
There was suspicion at first that perhaps the Russian mob
was involved.
He had made some very, very important discoveries.
He was considered to be an asset for the Soviet Union.
She had quite a bit of influence over him,
and his, his situation here in the United States.
[Narrator] The key to unlocking this ghastly crime lies
in a tangled story of jealousy and greed.
Things started to add up
that something nefarious really did happen.
[Stephen] There's a very consistent theme
that she's very controlling,
very manipulative, and very vindictive.
If she couldn't have him, nobody could.
[music]
[Narrator] April 7, 1996.
It's 10:00 am on Easter Sunday,
and officers in East Rutherford, New Jersey,
are looking forward to a light day of patrols.
[Richard] I had coffee with, uh, the other guys on my shift.
And a little after 10:00,
I headed down towards the west end of town
towards the industrial complex.
Since this was Easter Sunday, you know, it's a holiday.
Very, very little activity was taking place.
[Narrator] Officer Freeman drives through the area
to make a routine check, and spots something strange.
I headed down towards the river
and that's when I came upon a powder blue car
with the trunk open.
As I approached this vehicle, I noticed several things.
Number one, the front license plate was bent
so I could not read it.
Second thing is there were garbage bags,
and I could see the ties, the yellow ties,
sticking out of the trunk.
To my left there was a dumpster.
And I'm thinking to myself,
if this car is backed up and it's got garbage bags in it,
why wouldn't the person who's operating the car
be dumping the garbage in that dumpster?
Something was definitely wrong.
And up from the riverbank comes a gentleman, bearded gentleman.
He came about halfway up, stopped, looked at me,
and the fear of God was, was in his eyes.
I unsnapped the holster just in case I had to use my weapon.
I called him up.
I said, "Come over here."
And as he started walking towards me,
I kept an eye on him,
and I opened one of the bags in the trunk of the car.
I look inside,
and I see what I perceive to be human intestine.
[music]
I was like, whoa.
I don't know what I got here, but it looks like body parts.
This guy might have murdered somebody.
I watched him come up and as he was walking slowly,
I'm observing him.
And he had a latex glove on his hand.
And I also noticed some droplets of blood
on one of his work shoes.
I motioned him to stand at the rear wheel of his car.
And I said, "Give me your driver's license."
And I looked at it and his name was Vladimir Zelenin.
He was Russian.
I said, "What are you doing here?
What's, what's in the bags?"
And he just, he just kind of like looked up in the air.
I assumed that he didn't speak English.
I really didn't wanna ask him a lot of questions
until he was handcuffed.
He had this look about him that he might try to overpower me.
He was definitely eerie.
I got my portable radio, I call for a backup.
I said, "Listen," I said,
"I think I got a body in a trunk of a car,
so you better send me everybody."
[Narrator] Minutes later,
backup patrols arrive and the man is taken into custody.
[Richard] We handcuffed him up and put him in the car.
And I read him Miranda warning.
I did ask Vladimir how many bodies were in the bags,
and he answered "one."
And with that he started to motion his head to the left
and he said, "More parts."
I said, "What?" He said, "More parts."
[music]
And there was a car parked maybe 40, 50 feet away.
We opened up the trunk and there was a couple more bags in there.
You could see, uh, like a scalpel,
a pair of pliers, an axe, belt, shoes,
you could make out a piece of, of what would appear to be skull
but missing the ear.
We just couldn't believe what we were looking at.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought
that I would encounter such a horrific scene.
He realized that he's obviously caught.
His whole demeanor changed
that he wanted to get this off of his chest.
Mr. Zelenin told the police that the victim was Yakov Gluzman.
[music]
[Narrator] Dr. Yakov Gluzman was a 48-year-old scientist,
world-renowned for his breakthroughs
in cancer research.
He and his wife, Rita Gluzman,
had known each other since they were children.
[Tim] Yakov Gluzman was born in Ukraine, 1947,
when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
Rita Gluzman was born in, uh, 1948 in Ukraine.
She was a brilliant woman, she was highly educated,
uh, a scientist as well.
[Narrator] While Yakov attended Moscow State University,
him and Rita kept in touch,
and after a brief courtship, got married in 1969.
Their first act as man and wife
was to plan an escape from the Soviet Union.
Both Rita and Yakov were Jewish and at that point in time
there was a lot of discrimination
against the Jewish population in Communist Russia.
Rita had petitioned to get the family out of the Soviet Union
and go to Israel, and eventually she was allowed to go.
But Yakov, because he was a scientist,
was not allowed to leave.
He was considered to be an asset for the, uh, Soviet Union
and so he could not leave the country.
Yakov, however, told Rita, "Please leave,"
you know, because she was pregnant with their child.
[Narrator] In 1970, Rita immigrated to Israel,
where she gave birth to the couple's only child, a son.
But she was determined not to leave her husband behind.
[Tim] Rita Gluzman came to the United States
where she launched a protest in front of the United Nations
and a hunger strike,
drawing attention to the plight of her husband.
[Dr. Bruce] She even lobbied, uh, members of Congress
and wrote to the, uh, the President of the United States.
[Narrator] Desperate to reunite her family
after 22 months apart,
Rita's hard work resulted in an emotional reunion.
Yakov Gluzman is allowed to join Rita in Israel at long last.
And they lived in Israel for several years
pursuing postgraduate education.
[Narrator] In 1977, the couple immigrated to Long Island,
New York.
Yakov was hired to do his post-doctoral work
at Cold Spring Harbor laboratories,
one of the world's leading research centers.
I was a colleague,
at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory with Yakov.
The family lived on the campus in an apartment.
Yakov really enjoyed the idea of living on the campus
and being able to spend time with his son.
He was a gentle giant was the way I remember him.
A lot of fun but, uh,
very serious scientist when it came down to it.
This was a very interesting time in cancer research
because it was known that viruses could cause cancer
and everybody was interested in,
what are the genes inside these viruses that can cause cancer?
He had made some very, very important discoveries.
[Tim] By the early 80's, Rita was raising their son,
who would've been 10, 12 years old.
In 1987, Yakov Gluzman gets an offer
from a major pharmaceutical concern headquartered
in Pearl River, New York,
looking for cures for cancer and is paid a very nice salary.
[Narrator] Yakov's new job paid so well,
he and Rita were able to buy an expansive home.
[Louis] The home was in Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey.
This area was a very affluent neighborhood.
There were multimillion dollar homes, very large,
almost mansion-type of homes.
[Tim] Sometime after the Gluzmans resettled,
Rita decided to start a technology company
and it was a electro-plating concern known as
ECI Technologies.
ECI Technologies was a business that was involved in, uh,
electronic components for other businesses.
[Narrator] For more than a decade,
the Gluzmans lived their American dream.
With their son grown,
they focused on expanding their business and traveling together.
We met in Jamaica at the end of 1995.
She talked about how much she loved her husband,
she said more than once how brilliant he was.
They were just a loving couple.
[Narrator] But now, their dream life has turned into a nightmare
with the discovery of Yakov's alleged remains
in the trunk of a car.
Within an hour, the East Rutherford Industrial Park
becomes the site of a massive murder investigation.
[Louis] This brought a huge response
from numerous other police agencies.
They brought in forensic teams.
They brought in scuba diving teams to go into the river
to search for additional body parts.
There was no way at that point in time
in this early stage of the investigation
to confirm exactly what Vladimir Zelenin
had told the police.
[Narrator] Hoping to confirm the victim's identity
and learn more from their suspect,
detectives transport him to the station.
Was it the Russian mafia?
And I'm thinking, 'What was going through his mind?
What did the guy in the bags do
to make him cut him up in such a way?'
I mean it, it was brutal.
[music]
[Narrator] Coming up...
The prime suspect makes a horrifying confession.
He was trying to cut up the body into such small pieces
that couldn't be identified.
[Narrator] And he claims he didn't act alone.
While he was in the bathroom,
he heard her yell out to him,
"He's still breathing! He's still breathing!"
[music]
[Narrator] While murder suspect Vladimir Zelenin
is brought in for questioning,
divers search the river for any additional evidence.
There was a bag left on a rock down at the riverbank.
Obviously, you know, he got some stuff into that river.
We're going to have to find it.
And the Passaic is very polluted and murky,
and it was a cold day.
Divers did heroic, uh, work.
[Narrator] The divers manage to recover several more body parts
that are assumed to belong to the same person found
in two vehicles at the scene.
We contacted the medical examiner's office,
and they took possession of all the bags
to be positively identified.
We're talking about large Hefty bags filled with body parts,
roughly 65 pieces of this man.
And they weren't small pieces,
they were parts of his arm, parts of his hand, his fingers,
eyes, a heart, liver.
It was a fairly gruesome, ugly situation.
[Narrator] Now, police need more information from their suspect.
Once back at the East Rutherford Police Department,
detectives were speaking with Vladimir Zelenin
with the assistance of the interpreter.
[Narrator] The brutal nature of the crime
has led to speculation about the Russian mafia.
However, it turns out Vladimir and Yakov were friends.
[Carlos] Vladimir Zelenin is the cousin of Rita Gluzman.
Rita and Yakov were very instrumental
in, uh, bringing Zelenin from Russia back in 1993.
[Louis] Vladimir Zelenin had lived
in the former Soviet Union.
His wife had been murdered during a robbery
of a check cashing company that she had worked at.
He had told authorities though, that, uh,
she was the victim of an anti-Semitic murder,
and that was the basis for his seeking political asylum
in the United States.
[Carlos] Rita basically took Vladimir under her wing.
She provided for him.
Rita got him a job at ECI Technology,
got him an apartment in Fair Lawn.
She had quite a bit of influence over him and his,
his situation here in the United States.
[Narrator] According to Vladimir,
he had no reason to kill Yakov, but Rita did.
[Louis] Vladimir Zelenin told the police
that for several months his cousin, Rita Gluzman,
had been complaining to him that she and Yakov Gluzman
were going through a divorce.
[Carlos] He knew that the divorce was bitter.
He told us that Yakov had moved out back in 1995
and got his own apartment.
He had enough of her lavish lifestyle,
and he was a very frugal man.
[Narrator] Vladimir says Rita feared
the divorce would mean the end of her business.
[Louis] Rita kept telling Vladimir Zelenin
that if ECI Technologies went under,
that she would lose everything.
Once the divorce became a reality,
she was going to do anything she could
to protect the assets that she had.
Rita Gluzman had come to Vladimir Zelenin sometime in,
uh, February of 1996,
asking for his help in murdering her husband, Yakov.
He had at first declined.
Rita reminded him that his livelihood and his, uh,
immigration status in the United States,
depended entirely on his employment at ECI.
[Louis] Rita had been threatening
if Vladimir did not help Rita kill her husband,
she was going to go to the authorities and tell them
that his political asylum application was falsified,
and that he would then be thrown out of the country.
According to Mr. Zelenin,
he felt like he had no other option.
He did not want to go back to where he came from.
He felt that that was a death sentence.
[Narrator] Vladimir says the plan was simple.
He told the police that Rita still had access
to the apartment that Yakov Gluzman was living in.
The plan that they came up with
was that they would lay and wait inside the apartment,
that they were armed with axes, hatchets, and knives.
And when Yakov Gluzman came home,
they would attack him.
Yakov Gluzman worked late on Saturday, April 6th.
Returning home to his, uh, apartment after 11:45 at night.
The door opened and Vladimir said that
he had both hands on the axe.
He hit Yakov in the head with the axe,
and he made a sound, and he dropped down,
and he hit him again.
And then, Rita came around the corner
and started attacking him.
[Louis] Rita Gluzman had a hatchet,
and Rita was, uh, furiously hitting him
with the hatchet at the top of his head.
[Narrator] However,
things didn't quite go the way they anticipated.
Vladimir says during the frenzy,
Rita cut his hand with her axe
and he went into the bathroom to bandage it.
While he was in the bathroom, he heard Rita yell out to him,
"He's still breathing! He's still breathing!"
Vladimir came out of the bathroom,
looked down at Yakov, and said, "There's nothing I can do now."
Rita then took a knife and began to use it,
stabbing Yakov Gluzman in the torso area.
[Narrator] Once they were sure Yakov was dead,
they began covering their tracks.
Vladimir's job was to dismember him,
so, Vladimir was in the bathroom,
doing what he needed to do
in the bathtub while Rita sanitized that apartment.
Vladimir said that Yakov was a fairly large person
and that they couldn't really just carry him
out of the apartment.
So, he had no other choice but to dismember the body,
to put him into different bags.
He was trying to cut up the body into such small pieces
that it couldn't be identified.
So, that's why he cut off the ears, he cut off the nose.
The fact that one person could do that to another human being
shocks the conscience so much.
[Hilda] By now, it's about six o'clock in the morning,
and they drag those bags downstairs.
And these are heavy bags.
[Carlos] According to Zelenin,
Rita told him to put the bags in the trunk of Yakov's car.
So, they were able to use
Yakov's car as well as Zelenin's car
to put all 11 bags of body parts
and tools into the trunk of both cars.
[Narrator] Vladimir says they planned
to dump the bags in the river,
but Rita made a stop for medical supplies along the way.
[Carlos] They stopped at a CVS store,
and they bought a tremendous amount of bandages and gauzes
and band-aids to take care of Zelenin's hand.
And then they proceeded to drive both vehicles
to the ECI Technologies parking lot.
Upon arrival, they left Yakov's vehicle there,
and then Zelenin drove Rita back to the house
in Upper Saddle River,
and then he returned back to ECI Technologies
where Yakov's car was to dump the body parts
in the Passaic River.
That's when he was found by Police Officer Richard Freeman.
[Narrator] Based on his confession,
Vladimir is charged with murder.
Now detectives must determine if Rita is the mastermind
or another potential victim.
We knew where Zelenin was.
We had no idea where Rita was.
We didn't know if his statement was accurate.
We need to corroborate what he says.
She was possibly a witness,
possibly a person of interest, possibly dead, even.
[music]
[Narrator] After the arrest of Vladimir Zelenin,
New Jersey police are focused
on locating his alleged co-conspirator, Rita Gluzman.
Given what Vladimir had said about what he had done to Yakov,
the police were concerned that perhaps, you know,
he had done something also to Rita.
[Tim] Officials tried to find Rita Gluzman
at the Gluzman family residence in Upper Saddle River.
Once the, uh, search warrant was authorized by the judge,
we entered the residence and we proceeded to search.
They were unable to find Rita Gluzman there
or anyone at the Gluzman household.
[Narrator] But police do find some incriminating evidence.
We knew that one of the knives in the bag of tools
was a Henckel knife.
I realized that there was
a block of Henckel knives on the kitchen
that were missing several of them.
[Carlos] Part of my search is always securing
the trap from the washer
because usually when you wash an item with blood,
there's blood left in the trap.
But in order for me to do that, I had to remove the dryer first.
In the vent of the dryer on the wall, there was an envelope.
I wanted to know why is this envelope
so well secured in here, so well hidden?
Uh, it turned out to be a couple of business cards
and phone numbers ripped from a phone book.
That was seized as evidence.
[Narrator] When detectives are finished at the house,
they try to find Rita at her company.
[Louis] At her company, ECI Technology
the workers there all said they had not seen her.
So, what was decided was a nationwide alert
would be put out to all law enforcement agencies,
both state and federal,
to see if they could locate Rita Gluzman.
[Narrator] Their next stop is the alleged crime scene,
Yakov Gluzman's apartment.
As we were walking into the building, like,
you could see some small amount of smeared blood on,
uh, the door jamb.
[Narrator] When detectives go inside,
they find the place is spotless.
[Louis] There was no obvious signs
that a murder had taken place.
So, it was very difficult at that point in time to really,
uh, determine whether or not what Vladimir Zelenin said
was actually true, that a murder occurred there.
However, after the police did some forensic investigation
and spoke with neighbors,
things started to add up that something nefarious
really did happen in this apartment.
I did go downstairs to the apartment
directly below Yakov's apartment
and I spoke to a female there.
She told me that in the middle of the night
she heard hammering upstairs,
and she was wondering what the heck
could anybody be doing at this time of night.
[Louis] In the morning,
another neighbor told the police that they'd looked out
their kitchen window and observed what appeared to be
a female and a male going to the vehicles,
just like Vladimir said.
She saw them dragging the bags, putting them in the trunk.
The woman had her head covered
and she was kind of careful to keep her head down
and not to be seen.
They were obviously trying to be
as discreet as possible, but they weren't.
[Narrator] Unfortunately,
the witness can't say for certain the woman was Rita,
but her testimony corroborates much of what Vladimir
told police.
The most important thing left to confirm
is the identity of the victim.
On April 9th, two days after the body parts were found,
a medical examiner determines they are missing a piece.
We tried to basically rebuild, if you will,
the body, uh, with all the parts.
There were 65 pieces at that point.
And by doing that, we were able to realize that we were missing,
uh, his left forearm.
We contacted the Bergen County Police Diving Team again
and they went back, and they found it.
[Narrator] Even with a full body,
identification proves difficult.
[Carlos] All fingerprints,
all tips of all the fingers had been severed off.
There was suspicion at first that perhaps the Russian mob
was involved because the modus operandi matched, uh, theirs.
Vladimir was meticulous in what he did
to diminish the ability to identify him.
[Louis] Fortunately for the medical examiner,
Vladimir Zelenin also committed one huge mistake
in that he did not remove and cut the jawbone with the teeth.
The medical examiner was able then to use dental records
to make a positive identification of Yakov Gluzman.
[Narrator] Nearly every detail of Vladimir's confession
has now been verified.
The one piece still missing is Rita.
That's about the time that the bureau started to get involved.
They came to us because we had the resources to start to cover
the New York metropolitan area
in a way that the local jurisdictions
don't have the capacity to do.
We put out all points at all the airports,
contacted all the transportation agencies.
[Louis] Some of the information that was returned
was that Rita Gluzman's vehicle had entered LaGuardia Airport
at about three o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday.
You have to get a ticket when you pulled in
and then that would trigger a camera to read a license plate.
Is she hiding out?
Is she fleeing the car then exited a short time later?
[Narrator] As media coverage of the brutal crime spreads
across the tri-state area, another witness comes forward.
[Louis] Pictures of Rita Gluzman were flashed
on television screens and newspapers
throughout the tri-state area.
Ultimately wound up at a CVS pharmacy
and spoke to a clerk who said that he had recognized
Rita's picture in the newspaper as being a woman who came in
to buy bandages at or near the time
after the murder had occurred.
[Narrator] The clerk's identification of Rita
seems to remove any doubt
she was involved in her husband's murder.
It became pretty apparent that Vladimir Zelenin's statements
were checking out and that he was telling the truth.
[Carlos] She was not a victim.
She basically flew the coop.
We had no idea where this woman was.
[Narrator] Coming up...
Investigators find evidence that reveals a woman scorned.
How dare he find someone else, someone younger than her.
She wanted to take him for everything she could.
[music]
[Narrator] The investigation into the murder of Yakov Gluzman
is entering its fourth day and the alleged mastermind,
Rita Gluzman, is still missing.
While the search continues,
police build their case by examining the couple's finances.
Rita had quite a life before Yakov announced
that he wanted a divorce.
[Tim] Yakov Gluzman was making about $170,000
in the mid 1990's.
Rita was making somewhere in the neighborhood of $80,000
from her work at ECI.
Yakov had made what he felt was a very generous settlement offer
for their divorce.
He was going to give up his share of the house
and he was also going to give up some of his 401K's.
[Narrator] Despite Yakov's attempts at diplomacy,
Rita refused his terms.
We realized she wanted to take him for everything she could.
[Narrator] The couple's divorce attorneys tell investigators
a key point of contention was ECI Technologies,
the company they founded together.
She wanted that company to be signed over to her.
She wanted complete control of it.
He didn't know the financial situation of the business,
and he was trying to determine that
before he made his settlement.
Um, and she was precluding that from happening.
[Narrator] The company's financial records
give detectives insight into why Rita was so hesitant.
Rita Gluzman, as the president of ECI Technologies,
used her position to full advantage.
She used the company to pay the mortgage on her home,
to pay mortgages for her sister and her mother.
She had expensive cars that were leased through the company.
She was eating out at fine restaurants,
buying furs and jewelries, expensive clothing,
all these things that she really couldn't afford,
being paid through ECI Technology.
She was spending upwards of 20,000 dollars a month.
She was milking the company.
[Narrator] But greed wasn't the only thing driving Rita
to kill her husband.
Yakov's phone records reveal many of his calls were
to a phone number from Israel.
Yakov Gluzman had met a young researcher in Israel
on a trip there in 1994
and the two began a friendship that would later matriculate
into an extra marital affair.
He was not seeing her while he was still living
in the home with Rita.
He was separated.
[Narrator] When Rita found out, the woman says she was furious.
[Louis] How dare he find someone else,
find someone younger than her,
and basically if she couldn't have Yakov, nobody could.
[Tim] Rita's suspicious of what was going on
at Yakov's apartment.
So, she hired a private investigator.
[Narrator] Detectives call the numbers from the business cards
in Yakov's laundry room,
and when they find Rita's private investigator,
he tells them everything he did for her.
[Stephen] The private investigator referred her
to a couple of technicians
and she had them place a recording device in the home.
[Narrator] He says Rita used the information she gathered
to wage war on her husband.
Rita discovered that Yakov was working either to bring her here
to the United States, or to go back to Israel to be with her.
He was determined to maintain this relationship.
She was determined to destroy it.
[Stephen] We learned that Rita Gluzman paid
a private investigator in Israel to follow her husband.
And he was photographed with this woman.
Those pictures were sent back to Rita, in New Jersey,
via her courier account.
Those pictures turned up at the Gluzman family in Israel
looking to ruin his and tarnish his reputation
and the family's reputation, if they didn't pay 100,000 dollars.
[Louis] It was her intent to blackmail Yakov Gluzman.
However, she was mistaken because Yakov had introduced her
to the family in Israel.
They liked her and they were very pleased
that Yakov was dating this young woman.
[Narrator] With her blackmail attempts thwarted,
Rita ratcheted up her efforts to destroy Yakov's relationship.
Rita was asking these investigators in Israel
to do really crazy things like plant cocaine
on Yakov's girlfriend to prevent her
from getting here.
To infect her with the AIDS virus in a drink.
She was just really getting very desperate.
[Narrator] A month later, in December 1995,
Yakov filed for divorce.
Four months after that, he was murdered.
On April 12TH, 1996,
investigators get a tip that changes everything.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a big international center
for scientific conferences
and for training scientists in courses.
And so, we have these cabins on the North Shore of Long Island
where people would stay,
and they were not used except during the summer.
And one of their security people saw a light on
in one of these cabins and investigated
and saw someone living there and called the police.
[Hilda] The woman was Rita.
Then they arrest her for trespassing.
Rita knew the grounds really well.
She knew the bungalows, and I don't think she believed
that anybody would really be looking for her there.
[Narrator] Rita is apprehended without incident.
Inside the cabin,
police find evidence she'd been planning her next move.
They observed various items, like, uh,
travel books to countries like Switzerland,
which does not have an extradition treaty
with the United States.
And they found hair dye;
that Rita had changed the color of her hair.
She was obviously planning to leave.
[Narrator] Although the evidence appears
to be stacked against Rita,
prosecutors know convictions aren't guaranteed.
One of the major hurdles that, uh, we were facing
was how could we bring a case
against both Vladimir Zelenin and Rita Gluzman in this matter
given that we only had Vladimir Zelenin's confession?
And then we started to think
about charging her with this novel, new law.
[music]
[Narrator] After only six days of investigation,
New Jersey police have apprehended both suspects
in the gruesome murder of Yakov Gluzman.
As the mastermind, his wife Rita faces an array of charges,
including interstate conspiracy, extortion,
and illegal wiretapping.
She is also charged under a relatively new law
passed in 1994.
[Tim] So, it was decided that the U.S. attorney
and the district attorney would make a joint prosecution
and charge Rita under the Violence Against Women Act,
which made it a federal crime to cross state lines
and abuse a spouse resulting in death.
Initially, the law was designed to protect women.
[Narrator] Vladimir Zelenin is offered a plea deal
in exchange for testifying against her.
In exchange for his cooperation against Rita Gluzman,
he would receive a reduced jail sentence by a few years.
Without him, there's no case against Rita.
[Narrator] Nine months later, in January 1997,
Rita stands trial in federal court.
[Louis] The theory in the prosecution of Rita Gluzman
was that Rita was very concerned that if the divorce went through
and Yakov backed out of ECI Technology,
that she would then lose the business and the lifestyle
that it brought her.
This was not an aggrieved wife who was about to be divorced
because her husband's having an affair,
but rather a cold, calculating individual
who did not want to lose the lifestyle
that she was accustomed to.
Rita snapped because she was going to lose everything.
She was going to lose her kingdom.
I have seen people, you know, killed,
and dismembered to a degree, but not 66 pieces.
[Stephen] There's a very consistent theme
that she's very controlling,
very manipulative, and very vindictive.
[Tim] The main event, if you will,
was their cross examination of Vladimir Zelenin
and his involvement in the murder of, uh,
Yakov Gluzman.
It was an intense session.
But at the end of the day,
the defense really was not able to damage Vladimir Zelenin
and his version of events.
[Narrator] On January 29, 1997, the jury reaches a verdict.
Rita Gluzman was found guilty of all the charges
surrounding the incidents that happened in New York
and New Jersey.
The judge did sentence her to life in prison without parole.
[Narrator] Vladimir Zelenin is sentenced
to 22-and-a-half years.
The hardest part of this case was trying to understand
why Vladimir Zelenin committed the crime the way he did.
As a human being, you just have this feeling
of there has to be a different way
to resolve this issue that he faced.
[Narrator] Vladimir is released in 2015.
And 5 years later, despite her life sentence,
Rita gets a chance for early release.
She had beginning stages of Parkinson's Disease.
Uh, while in jail she had suffered a number of,
uh, mini strokes.
The judge in, uh, July of 2020,
grants Rita Gluzman compassionate release.
She's 72 years old.
[Andrea] She was given a compassionate release,
which I find pretty ironic
because she snuffed her husband's life out.
So, I don't really feel as if it's fair
that she's allowed to live in freedom.
[Narrator] More than two decades after his murder,
Dr. Gluzman's memory lives on,
in his work, and in the hearts of his friends and colleagues.
[Dr. Bruce] He will always be remembered here
by those who knew him as a fantastic person,
as an amazing intellect, as a, as a gentle giant.
That's the way I remember him.
And I will carry that memory for as long as I live.
[music]